Release
by eoraptor
Summary: When the pain is too much, how do you escape it?


**_Release_**

By Eoraptor

AN: Kim Possible… Disney… blah blah blah… Rated 13+

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She couldn't do this anymore. It hurt too much, there, in her chest. Three months now. She'd have thought the pain would dull with three months time behind her.

This was such a simple mission, her first time back. Bust in, stop the badguys, and recover the doohickey. She could have done this in her sleep. It shouldn't hurt this much.

In a way, she really was. She'd already gotten past the henchmen and the synthodrones, defeated the laser grid, and found the control panel, all in a fugue. After all, she'd been going through life for the last three months in a dream state, a nightmare state really; what was one small mission? It was hard to wake up with two thirds of her soul gone.

Then Shego was there, ripping her hand away from the self-destruct button at the last possible second. The pain of the titanium claws on the woman's gloves digging into her wrist caught her attention, but only slightly. She looked at the older woman dully, and then snapped her wrist free in a practiced reflex, ignoring the tiny red drops now dotting her skin.

Her other hand was also grabbed away when she tried to press the large red button, and she again looked blankly at the verdant woman. Shego said something to her, a concerned look in her eyes, but she didn't hear it. All she registered was the black painted lips moving and the white noise that permeated her existence.

That was one constant aside from the pain, the dull noise. It was nothing tangible, noting definite; it was just a noise, or even just the impression of a noise, blocking out most sounds. It helped her, helped her to avoid hearing the platitudes… the banal niceties of people she didn't care about telling her that this too would pass, or that time healed all wounds, or that there was a reason for all things. She was glad not to have to hear those things.

At least if she had to hurt all over, she didn't have to hear people tell her that she'd hurt less eventually. God did she hurt… No, scratch that. God had nothing to do with her pain, only random chance.

After a moment she turned her attention, what little of it there was, back to the large red button. Her palm was inches from it when her hand was snatched away again. This time she felt something… a dull heat, and pulled it away a little more forcefully from the tall woman's grasp. She looked down at the space her arm had just occupied.

She saw a flash of green light, and suddenly it was three months ago. A green light signaling that they could proceed across the intersection. It was his new car, and for once he wanted to drive her around, instead of the other way around. It was a gift from some corporation or other who had heard the story of how his scooter had been destroyed in the invasion, and wanted to repay him in some small way for saving the Earth.

She smiled over at him, the cool evening air ruffling his blonde hair as she said something pointless about their dinner plans and how the wind was killing her perm. It was a convertible after all; a nice one, not too expensive, but not cheap either.

Even her battle-trained eyes failed to register the rusted vehicle careening at them. All she knew was that at one moment she was looking into his brown eyes and laughing; and the next moment someone was pulling her out of the car, and covering the left side of her face with a cloth because of the lacerations from glass and plastic hitting her at around forty three miles an hour. They were also trying to keep her seeing two thousand pounds of German engineering sitting where the driver was supposed to.

She learned later that it was a 1967 Volkswagen Microbus, with weak brakes, driven by a thrice damned and five times convicted drunk driver. Mystical monkey men with ape feet couldn't stop him. Rampaging synthodrones disguised as handsome boys didn't throw him off the track. The threat of being forever trapped in a dimension composed of television shows didn't phase him. An unstoppable ninja toddler barely tired him. An alien warlord hadn't stood a chance against his onslaught.

A twenty-four pack of Milwaukee's Best had ended his life in a heartbeat. And Rufus's. And by extension hers.

Snapping, glowing fingers brought her forward in time to the present. She didn't want to be here. It hurt too much. Shego was talking to her again, that concerned look still in her eyes. It was mixed with irritation, but mostly concern. It almost touched her. Almost.

She threw a punch at the malachite mercenary. She just wanted to go back to bed, and knocking Shego out of her way would get her there that much faster. She wasn't surprised when Shego easily avoided the blow. After all, she was only moving with a fraction of her concentration in place.

The rest was with that cold stone that she lay beside so often.

She felt herself sigh more than she heard the sound, and swung a kick behind the punch. Again she saw the ex-hero duck away, saw the same concern in her emerald eyes as she continued talking. She could almost hear the worried sound in Shego's voice. Almost.

A glowing fist landed across her face as she completed her spin. It hurt a little, but still it paled in comparison to the pain she already bore. A tag on the chin was nothing like knowing that two thirds of her heart lay rotting in a brass box beneath a mound of dirt several hundred miles away.

Now Shego had her hands on her shoulders and seemed to be yelling at her. Shego was a good friend. It was an odd, unspoken sort of friendship, but it was friendship nonetheless. Still, she wanted nothing more than to go to bed. It was easier to be unconscious. The pain wasn't as bad.

She thrust her hands up and broke the taller woman's grip, thrusting her hands forward and pushing her off. This hurt even more, because of the look the fire-slinging woman gave her.

God she wanted the pain to stop.

Shego was getting frustrated now. She could see that at least through the fog that clouded her daily existence. She felt another blow across her cheek, a hard one; she hadn't even bothered to block it. Out of reflex she blocked the follow up blow, and for some reason that seemed to please the other woman.

Still, the pain was nothing. She could feel a trickle of blood on her cheek. It bled easily these days, still weeping out shards of glass from… She didn't know what to call it. It would have taken far more than an accident to kill him. No word in the multiple languages she knew seemed to convey what it was. Most people insisted on accident, but it wasn't that.

Ignoring the blood, not bothered when it spilled over her lip and made her taste copper, she looked at Shego and threw another perfunctory punch. On her worst day, even Shego could never hurt her like this, so what was the point of trying to hit her back.

Why couldn't the pain just stop?

When would it end? What would release her from this? She couldn't end it herself. She'd tried. Apparently she wasn't all that after all.

Shego wanted her attention again. She let her know by punching her in the face again. It barely registered this time. A second rapid shot, this time right on her nose, got her to look outward from her muddled nightmare existence briefly. The pale woman was angry now. Not irritable like she usually was, but really angry. She seemed to be shouting, and was gesticulating wildly grabbing her shoulders and shaking her occasionally.

Again, she broke away from the contact. Being touched hurt too much. The concerned grabs and the yelling hurt far more than the punches, but still not as much as just existing did. Still, she had to exist.

She wasn't strong enough to stop existing. Not alone.

But she wasn't alone. She had a friend. A strong friend. One who _was_ strong enough. _She_ could help her.

She shook off the shaking hands that gripped her. Concentrating on reality hurt even more than just existing; but this wasn't reality, not without him.

Shego seemed angry about that resistance. She tried to grab her, but again was thrown off, and this time punched in the face. Her eyes narrowed and she swung back. This time she failed to connect. She arched a brow, in that way only Shego could, but the concern didn't fully leave her face. She said something else.

She needed to shut up already. Not being able to hear the words didn't make being talked down to any less annoying.

She threw another punch at the woman and through a supreme effort of will, reversed direction and kicked out from the opposite side. It hurt so much to concentrate on this, to have to actually think about anything and put in effort. Thinking about breathing was enough effort most days.

She felt a tag on her shoulder after a moment. Good, Shego was going to help her. She needed the help. She grabbed the arm and twisted it as hard as she could. It hurt, because she hadn't exerted herself in three months, and because she had to think about it, and not just herself and her emptiness.

Feeling the arm tense in reaction to the pain she inflicted, she nodded to herself. With another herculean effort of though, she brought her knee up under the elbow, and felt it bend awkwardly in her grasp.

The exhausting thought and effort she was putting into this was rewarded when her friend's hands again glowed green. She felt more pain than she had ever thought she could feel. It hurt so bad to not be drawn back to the image of that green light again, like so many times before. The green light was safe, and inviting.

It existed in the seconds before the pain had started three months ago. Resisting going to it hurt even more.

She focused on the elbow, slamming her knees into it again and again. Finally she felt Shego pull free and rear back to retaliate. She could feel the heat coming from her. The green light of her hands pierced the white fog of Kim's mind a little. She turned to block the punch that would be coming.

And dropped her arms.

She felt something strange in the left side of her chest. She looked down and understood why. As she did, she felt the pain end. The last third of her heart was gone, only Shego's warm glowing fist was there now, burning away the last of her emptiness in a very real sense. Finally, with the help of her friend, the pain had stopped

She could feel the white fog that had been around her vision for three months start to close in and thicken. Her exhausted body was giving out now, and she could no longer even feel the odd sensation in her chest.

Looking up, she saw the horrified shock in Shego's eyes. It made her feel a little sorry for her friend. Still, she knew Shego was strong. She would get over this. After all, she had finally done what she'd tried to do for five years. She'd stopped Kim Possible.

She found she couldn't inhale the air to speak, but she needed for Shego to know it was all right. She didn't want Shego to have to think that this was a bad thing.  It wasn't. Her pain was gone. This didn't hurt at all.

She mouthed the words "Thank You" even as Shego shook her head in terrified denial.

As she fell away from the woman, the good woman and her steaming fist, she smiled.

She'd finally been released from the pain and would be with him soon.

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_No author's notes… Just want to know what people thought about this. _


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